Personal and Environmental Wellness

During times of reflection, I regularly think about Stephen Covey's suggestion to find the right walls to climb before I spend my limited days climbing.

Spending time to identify the right walls to climb can sometimes require more energy than the actual process of climbing; it can bring about much frustration and second guessing. Still, my experience has been that working hard to carefully choose which walls we want to scale is worth the effort, and is an important part of striving to develop the ability to live with wisdom.

A few of our readers recently brought to my attention the annual mass slaughter of young seals, many of them babies, near Newfoundland, Canada.

Please take a few minutes to watch the following video on this disturbing practice.

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Kent NerburnIf you have been reading my blog for a year or more, you probably know that I appreciate the work of a writer named Kent Nerburn. Several years ago, I came across an impactful letter that he once wrote to his son on how to choose a life partner, and I have been following his work ever since.

This morning, I found the following passage at his blog, one that I connected with right away. I have long thought about the types of people in this world who we can really empower with our efforts, and I think Kent's passage provides useful guidance on this life issue.

One evening back in May of 2000, a documentary on PBS caught my attention. It was about the many thousands of young Korean women who were essentially forced into sexual slavery by Japan during World War II.

The interviews with some of these Korean women - now grandmothers living in Korea, Japan, and China - were difficult to watch because of how sad their stories were, but I found myself barely able to move for the entire film.

I recently heard about a program on the Animal Planet channel that featured the 50 most amazing facts about animals that few people know about.

I thought that some of our readers would find some of the facts that I learned from this program to be as fascinating as I do. What follows is a summary of the facts that surprised me the most.

Sea TurtleIs there a soul among us who cannot help but appreciate the laid-back nature of the slow and steady turtle? Last week, I ran across a fascinating article on the world's most lovable reptile.

What follows are some amazing facts about turtles that I learned from the Times article:

1. Due in large part to its slow metabolism, a turtle can survive for centuries. In March of 2005, a giant tortoise named Adwaita died in a Calcutta zoo at 250 years of age.

Please take a minute to view the following video that describes the incredibly cruel practice of pulling sharks onto a boat, cutting off their fins for the Asian soup market, and throwing these finless sharks back into the water to die. A warning: this video contains actual footage of a shark having a fin cut off in gruesome fashion - I don't believe it's appropriate for children to view.

Wow. I just watched a 1-minute film that completely blew me away. I had to watch it five times in a row. If you have high-speed internet access, please take a minute to watch it by clicking here:

The Man Who Heard VoicesAbout a month ago, I greatly enjoyed reading a recently published book called The Man Who Heard Voices: Or, How M. Night Shyamalan Risked His Career on a Fairy Tale, written by Michael Bamberger.

One of the main goals that I have for this web site is to encourage our readers to learn how to be their own best doctors.

Please don't misunderstand me; I think that there are some wonderfully caring and competent doctors in our world.

But there are also many doctors who don't have each of their patients' best interests at or even near the top of their list of priorities. Read more »